In recent years, the weight loss and diet gurus have divided into two distinct groups. One group recommends beans, bread, barley and other low-fat, high carbohydrate foods while advising against red meat and butter. The other group urges banning that bread and eating high fat, low carb foods such as butter, beef and bacon. Now Sweden has earned the distinction of becoming the first Western nation to develop national dietary guidelines that recommend high fat, low carb diets, reported Health Impact.

The decision to make the dramatic change results from two years of research by the independent Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment. After analyzing 16,000 studies, the council concluded that diets high in fat and protein and low in carbohydrates benefit the health and the waistline more than the traditional food pyramid that reigns in the United States.

"The stricter low-carbohydrate diet will lead to improved glucose levels for individuals with obesity and diabetes," stated Swedish physician Andreas Eenfeldt.

"Butter, olive oil, heavy cream, and bacon are not harmful foods. Quite the opposite. Fat is the best thing for those who want to lose weight. And there are no connections between a high fat intake and cardiovascular disease," he added.

Prof. Fredrik Nyström, from Linköping, Sweden, has been a proponent of reduced carbohydrate diets for years, promoting saturated fat such as butter and bacon over bread and barley.

“I’ve been working with this for so long. It feels great to have this scientific report, and that the skepticism towards low-carb diets among my colleagues has disappeared during the course of the work. When all recent scientific studies are lined up the result is indisputable: our deep-seated fear of fat is completely unfounded. You don’t get fat from fatty foods, just as you don’t get atherosclerosis from calcium or turn green from green vegetables," he declared.

And he emphasized the benefits of protein over potatoes and pasta.

"If you eat potatoes you might as well eat candy. Potatoes contain glucose units in a chain, which is converted to sugar in the GI tract. Such a diet causes blood sugar, and then the hormone insulin, to skyrocket," added the professor.

In particular, Nyström stressed how a high fat, low carb diet can boost weight loss by cutting cravings.

"For many people a greater intake of fat means that you’ll feel satiated, stay so longer, and have less of a need to eat every five minutes," he said.

And he compared those benefits to the cravings that result from consuming too much sugar.

"On the other hand, you won’t feel satiated after drinking a Coke, or after eating almost fat free, low-fat fruit yogurt loaded with sugar," he concluded.

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Joanne Eglash has more than 25 years of experience as a freelance journalist and author. She's written articles, features, interviews, blogs, newsletters, and reviews for magazines such as Shape, Pregnancy and Success and for Web sites such as ediets and Yahoo. Joanne welcomes tips for her articles, which cover all aspects of health and lifestyles. She also is a freelance researcher and editor. Email her at snackscriber @ gmail.com